Warnings: sexual themes, one-sided love, and emo-like tendencies
Rating: T
Length: 343 words
Summary: In a way, cleavers did have to do with sheets.
Rustle
"Ichi-kun, I baked you a cake today!" The rival beams, her auburn-red tresses flying to catch up to her friend.
"What flavor?" Ichigo distractedly asks, anxious to go home. Valentine's Day has never been quite his cup of tea, what with girls giving damned chocolates like the plague. He takes a drink of water from a nearby fountain and turns, mouth full of water, just as the rival answers:
"Leek!" And with that, Ichigo spits out water all over the rival's face.
The shinigami can't keep herself from laughing, so she ducks into a supply closet and emerges out serious, over her laughing fit. She sees the rival and him walk away, the rival walking next to Ichigo. Almost instantly, her mirth disappears and the shinigami ducks back inside the closet.
She's seen that look before – the look he used to give her, until he had found the rival instead. She can't bear to see him give that look to her. Instead, she will remember a better time. No, it's plural – she will remember better times.
As she walks home, the shinigami remembers when he had used to scare off her nightmares. Warm arms had used to encircle her at night, and then the sheets would rustle with their ardor. She knows that had been the only time when she hadn't had the nightmares. As she opens the door to her solitary apartment, she remembers how warm the sheets had been – what had been the color of the sheets?
As she goes inside the kitchen to prepare dinner, her eyes catch the shining edge of a cleaver. His zanpakutou had been just like a cleaver, except bigger and deadlier. She can remember when he defended her with it, wrapped in those whispering sheets. Seriously, what was the color?
As the shinigami grips the handle of the knife, words worm their way out of her mouth, enchanting the blade as she pushes it into not her gigai, but her soul. The surroundings dim, and she finally remembers.
They had been red, red as blood.
End
Kaos does not own BLEACH.